The other day I stopped by McDonald’s late at night, this is probably the first time this has happened to me in the million and millions of burgers I have been served there. So here it goes…

I walk in and there are only three people working, I can see one girl behind the grill just standing and another girl running to the back, then back to the front, there was another customer ahead of me and another customer waiting for food off to my right. The third employee was feverishly re-supplying the ketchup and napkins. The girl came up to the counter where the guy in front of me was and just stood there not saying anything, she then ran back again to the back. I wasn’t sure what was really going on. When she came back up this time she had the order for the guy off to my right, then disappeared somewhere in the back. After a few moments here she comes again and gives the guy in front of me his food. I step up, but, before she takes my order she runs over to the fryer and presses a few buttons. This whole time I can see the other girl at the grill just standing there and now the third employee is beginning to sweep the floor.

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I order a sandwich, the girl runs to the back again and a few minutes comes back to tell me the price, I hand her my check card, and she says “Cash only”, I’m like “What, cash only??” She says “Yeah, the computers are down”. (I’m thinking this might have been something you should have started with) anyway, I reach in and give her cash and she goes to the back and after about 5 minutes brings me change. Now, she tells the other girl behind the grill the order and she goes to the back again and brings out a broom and begins sweeping behind the counter, then after about 5 more minutes go by and the girl behind the grill asks the girl, “What was that order?” She drops the broom on the floor and tells her, then she goes to the fryer and is working with the potatoes, when the food is up she grabs the food (while kicking the broom laying on the floor) and hands it to me.

Needless to say this was the first time in 35+ years I’ve been to McDonalds, that the crew was so discombobulated, and out of the three of them I think the guy cleaning the floors should get a big-time promotion and the two other girls should get a big pink slip!

Seems like working hard to get on top just isn’t as popular as it was when I grew up. There wasn’t such a thing as a computer, but, I spent countless days and nights to figure it out. Every new type of computer that came out I had to try…

I owe a lot to the TRS 80, the Timex computer, the Texas instruments pc, and even the Commodore 64

Before PC’s started coming out I reminisce about how I would type basic code from examples and write data lines, save them to cassette tape and reload them to work on them again (which didn’t always work 100%). I started investing in stock and created a graphic program to show the historical data of the investments by typing in the daily prices from the newspaper. It took a lot of stick-to-itiveness to do it.

When I first started writing business applications I kept one thing in mind through all of this experience, there isn’t anything I can’t make a computer do. How many times have you hired a programmer, or consultant and the next words out of their mouth is “That can’t be done”? Why? Call me crazy, but, that’s the secret, if you work hard at something, don’t accept defeat!

Seems like the up and coming have an attitude of pay me a lot now, but, then show me how to do it because I don’t know how. I know, it seems like a rant of “I walked 5 miles in the snow to get to school when I was your age…” that our parents told us. But, really, seriously?

The moral of the story is, working hard is the American way, and a Christian ethic, so lets not forget it!

If you have a project that someone told you couldn’t be done, give me a call, then stand back and watch an American do it!

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